Security News

The US government's crackdown on TikTok continues, with the latest salvo being a bipartisan bill that would outright ban the popular social media app from doing business in the country. Several US states have already banned the app on government-owned devices, while Indiana has sued TikTok for inflicting harm on residents.

Two more US states have launched aggressive action against made-in-China social media app TikTok. "The TikTok app is a malicious and menacing threat unleashed on unsuspecting Indiana consumers by a Chinese company that knows full well the harms it inflicts on users," said AG Todd Rokita in a statement.

Public sector bans of Chinese platform TikTok on the grounds of national security have arisen in both Taiwan and additional US states following last week's ban in South Dakota. Last month, Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council reportedly said the government has prohibited Chinese-funded corporations from operating online platforms in Taiwan and ByteDance does not operate a branch in Taiwan.

The governor of South Dakota issued an executive order on Tuesday banning the use of Chinese social media platform TikTok for state government agencies, employees and contractors on state devices. In a press release the state government said the order was in response to the growing national security threat posed by TikTok's data-gathering operations on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party.

Malware-slinging miscreants are taking advantage of a trending TikTok challenge - and viewers' dirty minds - to spread data-stealing malware via a phony app that's had more than one million views so far. The new TikTok trend is called Invisible Challenge, and it involves a person filming themself naked while using an effect called Invisible Body that removes the body from the video.

Researchers at secure coding company Checkmarx have warned of porn-themed malware that's been attracting and attacking sleazy internet users in droves. The scam in this case claims to offer software that can reverse the effects of TikTok's Invisible filter, which is a visual effect that works a bit like the green screen or background filter that everyone seems to use these days in Zoom calls.

Threat actors are capitalizing on a popular TikTok challenge to trick users into downloading information-stealing malware, according to new research from Checkmarx. "Instructions to get the 'unfilter' software deploy WASP stealer malware hiding inside malicious Python packages," Checkmarx researcher Guy Nachshon said in a Monday analysis.

Threat actors are capitalizing on a popular TikTok challenge to trick users into downloading information-stealing malware, according to new research from Checkmarx. The trend, called Invisible Challenge, involves applying a filter called Invisible Body that just leaves behind a silhouette of the person's body.

Hackers are capitalizing on a trending TikTok challenge named 'Invisible Challenge' to install malware on thousands of devices and steal their passwords, Discord accounts, and, potentially, cryptocurrency wallets. A new and trending TikTok challenge requires you to film yourself naked while using TikTok's "Invisible Body" filter, which removes the body from the video and replaces it with a blurry background.

The ByteDance-owned platform, which currently stores European user data in the U.S. and Singapore, said the revision is part of its ongoing data governance efforts to limit employee access to users in the region, minimize data flows outside of it, and store the information locally. "Based on a demonstrated need to do their job, subject to a series of robust security controls and approval protocols, and by way of methods that are recognised under the GDPR, we allow certain employees within our corporate group located in Brazil, Canada, China, Israel, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, and the U.S. remote access to TikTok European user data," the company said.